Movie Review Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice 

Directed by David Price 

Written by A.L Katz, Gilbert Adler, 

Starring Terrence Knox, Paul Scherrer, Ryan Bollman 

Release Date January 29th, 1993 

Published January 31st, 1993 

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice is a bonkers disaster of a horror sequel. Produced 8 years after the original Stephen King adapted horror flick, the film is laughably out of touch with even the minor pleasures of the 1984 film. Comically inept director David Price, the son of the head of Dimension Studios at the time, starts bad and builds one unintentionally comic scene after another until the whole thing crashes off the rails in a beautifully unintentionally hilarious train wreck. 

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice begins in Gatlin, Nebraska, the setting of the original, Children of the Corn, where a group of children are being rescued. Somehow, 8 years later, law enforcement caught wind of what happened in Gatlin. Rather, they heard all of the adults had died and figured they should rescue the supposedly innocent children of Gatlin. I think that's what is happening but the comic ineptitude of the direction of Children of the Corn 2 makes it appear as if the kids boarded a bus in their new hometown and then immediately got off and joined new families. 

Meanwhile, journalists are covering the carnage in Gatlin, specifically a newsman and his camera operator who stop for a moment to give our protagonist a hard time. Terrence Knox stars in Children of the Corn 2 as John Garrett, a tabloid journalist coming to cover the story. Out TV journalists mention that Garrett is a disgraced former TV reporter but that is not something that will ever come up again or be remotely important to his 'arc,' to use a phrase that barely applies. 

After acting like High School bullies, the TV guys head to a nearby cornfield to shoot some B-Roll. This is the filler material you see editors use to transition from one part of a story to another. There, in one of the great unintentionally comic moments in this rather brilliant unintentional comedy, Corn comes to life and kills the TV guys. Stalks of literal corn come to life and use their sharp leaves to slice the throat of the cameraman while another corn stalk launches itself like Poseidon's Trident through the window of the newsman, impaling the reporter. 

It's as if whoever wrote this opening sequence hadn't seen the original movie and believed it was literally about killer corn stalks. Oh, and this NEVER happens again in the movie. Yeah, the movie employs actual Corn as a killing device and then never uses this motif again. It's cheap schlock of the highest order, a bit of complete nonsense that is so tasty in its unintended brilliance that I can't help but admire how awesomely stupid this sequence is. 

Back to our protagonist, he along with his son, are staying in the same neighboring town that the kids of Gatlin have been brought to. In fact, they are staying at a Bed and Breakfast with Micah (Ryan Bollman), who is the new leader of the Children of the Corn cult. It is Micah who now carries out the wishes of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This essentially boils down to wearing black and having his voice pitched in a funny overdub intended to make him sound possessed by a demon. It's quite funny, especially when his sacred robe looks like a cozy Snuggie that he cut the arms off of. 

The ineptitude of the scripting and direction of Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice is a perfect example of that sweet spot for so bad its good movies. It's so bad you might think it was done intentionally but so obvious that it comes from a lack of care and talent that it becomes kind of poignant. Poignant in that you almost feel bad laughing at the effort that went into creating something so very, very, unintentionally funny. 

There are so many great so bad its good moments in Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice. A famous one finds the titular child cult menacing an old woman in an electric wheelchair. The kids have an R.C car and somehow, Micah uses his dark magic to hack the woman's wheelchair so that he can control it. Micah rolls the poor old lady into the street where she is hit by a car. This creates a remarkably funny visual in which a very obvious dummy in an electric wheelchair goes flying through a plate glass window, interrupting a bingo game. That Wheelchair Old Lady is not a meme is a missed opportunity for our entire culture. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Free Skate

Free Skate (2023) 

Directed by Roope Elenius 

Written by Veera W. Vilo 

Starring Veera W. Vilo, Leena Uotila, Karolina Blackburn 

Release Date January 27th, 2023 

Published January 27th, 2023 

Free Skate boldly and starkly explores the abuses of the Russian sports infrastructure in damning and artful fashion. Veera W. Vilo plays an unnamed figure skater who is discovered lying unconscious in a Finnish roadway at the start of the film. From there, the movie jarringly shifts back and forth in time. In one timeline, we see the figure skater living in Finland with her loving grandmother and being part of a loving and caring team with her new figure skating coaches and trainers. 

In a timeline another timeline, our vulnerable, shy, and achingly sad figure skater is coming up the ranks of Russian figure skating. Her relationship with her coaches and trainers is antagonistic and cruel. The Russian approach to training is not what anyone would call nurturing. Rather, it involves terrifying the skaters into on ice perfection that is unattainable. Skaters who don't show enough improvement are punished by being forced to stand outside in a dangerously cold Russian winter in little more than a leotard. 

Success and improvement however, may be even worse than the tortured failure. As our figure skater protagonist becomes a figure skating star, she becomes the object of the Russian oligarchs who fund the Russian figure skating team. You can imagine, this funding for figure skating comes with a cost and that cost is paid not by the Russian government, the trainers or the coaches, it's paid by the skaters who are tasked with doing whatever it takes to secure further funding for the figure skating team. Free Skate is unflinching in showing you exactly the price that is paid. 

Cut back to Finland and our shy, sad, figure skater, haunted by her past, thrives under the more caring and nurturing environment of Finland but also lives in fear of her past. One of her trainers in Russia who did little to protect her from the horrific abuse of other coaches and the rich creeps who funded the skating team, was her own father, a man she now fears seeing anywhere she goes. The threat of being sent back to Russia hangs over the head of our figure skater as she makes a move to expose the horrors she experienced under the Russian regime. 

Free Skate doesn't claim to be based on a true story. That said, rumors about the horrors of being a Russian athlete date as far back as pre-World War 2. The Cold War ramped up the mistreatment of Russian athletes who were tortured and threatened with death if they did not achieve to a level that reflected well on the Russian leadership. Thus, it is not a major reach on the part of the makers of Free Skate to draft a story that focuses on athletes being violently, sexually and mentally abused. And yet, it's still shocking and appalling when you are forced to confront it as boldly  as it is presented in Free Skate. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Infinity Pool

Infinity Pool (2023) 

Directed by Brandon Cronenberg 

Written by Brandon Cronenberg

Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth 

Release Date January 27th, 2023 

Published January 30th, 2023 

Author James Foster has traveled to an exclusive resort with his bored and distant wife, Em (Cleopatra Coleman). James is suffering from writer's block to the point that he hasn't written anything in the six years since his mediocre first novel. James and Em are going through the motions of their lives when James meets Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth) and her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert). By some strange coincidence, Gabi is one of the few to have enjoyed James' novel. Though he'd rejected going out to dinner with his wife, when the Bauer's invite them to same restaurant, James' interest is renewed. 

The couples become best friends and the following day, they bribe a local to rent them a car so they can go to the beach. This is not a safe thing to do. The country they in frowns on tourists leaving the resort. That's why this luxury resort is surrounded by a razor wire fence, nobody comes in and no one is supposed to leave. Nevertheless, money talks and the group heads to a gorgeous beach. Naturally, this trip doesn't go well. Gabi's ulterior motives become very clear when she and James end up alone for a moment on the beach. 

However, the real plot doesn't kick in until the slightly inebriated foursome are ready to drive home. It's grown dark and James is the least drunk of the group and thus called upon to drive back to the resort. Along the way, the lights on the car short out and James doesn't see a local walk into the street in front of him. The car hits the man and kills him instantly. With everyone now VERY awake, Gabi advises everyone to get back in the car and get going. She says the local cops in this 3rd world travel destination will not treat them well. Okay, she states plainly that if arrested, she and Em will spend the next 24 hours being sexually assaulted while their husbands are tortured. 

This scares everyone back into the car and they drive on back to the resort and try to go on with their lives. However, the following morning, the cops have quite quickly followed the evidence and found the car and who was driving it. All four are arrested, though the Bauer's are suspiciously absent as Em and James are separated with each sent to interrogation rooms. The local police captain, played by Thomas Kretschmann, already knows James is guilty of driving drunk and killing a man, the Bauer's have already confessed as has Em, allegedly. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here

Movie Review: You People

You People (2023) 

Directed by Kenya Barris 

Written by Jonah Hill, Kenya Barris

Starring Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Lauren London, Nia Long, David Duchovny 

Release Date January 27th, 2023 

Published January 28th, 2023 

You People is an insufferable bore featuring caricatures of white and black people who talk as if they were programmed by Boomer Facebook memes. Kenya Barris and Jonah Hill are supposed to be better than that but by the evidence of You People, they've taken the lowest hanging fruit of awkward racial humor and blended it all together and reheated it over and over and over again and then called it a movie. The characters may have a point to make about the ways white and black people fail to communicate effectively with each other but it's hard to find that point in the midst of noisy, insufferable characters intended only to inflict themselves on each other rather than talk like human beings.  

You People stars Jonah Hill as Ezra Cohen and Lauren London as Amira Mohammad. These two 30-something kids meet-cute when Ezra mistakes Amira for his Uber Driver. She happens to be lost on her way to a new job and he's able to navigate her there. Along the way, he gets her phone number and the two start a sweet romance. He works in finance but dreams of being a podcaster and she's costume designer working on various different movie and television projects. They have terrific chemistry. Only one thing stands in there way, a terrible script, no wait, I mean their parents. 

Julia Louis Dreyfuss and David Duchovny are Shelly and Arnold Cohen and Eddie Murphy and Nia Long are Akbar and Fatima Mohammad. If you haven't guessed, the Cohen's are Jewish and the Mohammad's are Muslim, how will they ever get along? Sarcasm. Sarcasm. Sarcasm. Surprise, they don't get along and when Ezra decides to ask Amira to marry him things only get worse as Shelly stumbles into ruining their relationship over her woke enthusiasm, and Akbar actively works to undermine the relationship by catching Ezra doing something wrong, whatever that might be. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here 

Movie Review The Civil Dead

The Civil Dead (2023) 

Directed by Clay Tatum

Written by Clay Tatum, Whitmer Thomas 

Starring Clay Tatum, Whitmer Thomas, DeMorge Brown

Release Date February 3rd, 2023 

Published January 30th, 2023 

The Civil Dead is a shaggy charmer of a comedy. Written by, directed by, and starring Clay Tatum, The Civil Dead has wonderful high concept premise delivered a low key, mumblecore style charm. Clay Tatum plays Clay, a struggling photographer living in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, Whitney (Whitney Weir), also a photographer, though slightly more successfully. As we join the story, Whitney is leaving for a job out of town and chiding Clay to do more than just drink beer and lay around while she's out of town. 

Taking his wife's words to heart, Clay ventures out to take photos. While snapping a pick of a strange bit of graffiti, Clay runs into his old friend Whit (Whitmer Thomas). Whit is dead. Clay doesn't yet know that his friend is dead but he does know that he's eager to get away from this awkward reunion. Clay and Whit were friends before they moved to L.A. We will learn over the course of their reintroduction how odd it is that they lived in the same town and ran in the same circle but never ran across each other. It's probably because Whit was more invested in their friendship than Clay was. 

Find my full length review of Geeks.Media linked here 

Movie Review She is Love

She is Love (2023) 

Directed by Jamie Adams 

Written by Jamie Adams 

Starring Haley Bennett, Sam Riley, Marissa Abela 

Release Date February 3rd, 2023 

Published January 28th, 2023 

Through some trick or fate, oddball Patricia ends up a cottage somewhere in England that happens to be the same cottage that her ex-husband, Idris (Sam Riley), is staying at with his new love, Louise (Marisa Abela). Patricia and Idris have not seen each other in 10 years and that, along with the supremely awkward scenario, becomes the subject of Jamie Adams' comedy of modern manners, She is Love. All of it playing out in Jamie Adams' intimate fly on the wall fashion. 

Reminiscing is a fascinating subject. We all have memories we share with others, and it is fascinating to compare how you remember things. She is Love engages with that idea between Patricia and Idris and the power of their memories together is palpable. Their chemistry remains even after nearly a decade apart. Bennett and Riley's conspiratorial glances and emotional bond bubbles with life and energy. Scene after scene they find odd little asides, things to do to fill the seemingly endless amount of time they have in this cottage. 

Neither appears to have any reason to be where they are. Louise is here for a movie role. We see her reading lines and struggling to get into character. Ironically, the dialogue she's practicing mirrors the situation she's in as her character laments not wanting to spend time reflecting on the past. Louise is very much an outsider in this situation and her insecurity isn't played for laughs, nor is her cluelessness as she leaves her boyfriend alone with his ex-wife. 

At one moment, the film stops to allow Louise to express all of her tense emotions in a lonely dance to an upbeat French song. It's a lovely and revealing moment, capturing the anxiety of both her professional and personal struggle. I love the small ways that Adams allows her the space to explore her emotions. She's not a foolish character. In other, lesser movies, she'd be the villain standing in the way of true love between a pair of exes. Jamie Adams doesn't waste time on such things. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here

Documentary Review Downwind

Downwind (2023) 

Directed by Douglas Brian Miller, Mark Shapiro 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Martin Sheen, Patrick Wayne, Michael Douglas 

Release Date January 23rd, 2023 

Published January 27th, 2023 

Downwind is a terrifying title. Being downwind simply is not a place you want to be in most, if not all contexts. That is especially true if you are downwind from sites where the American government was testing nuclear weapons. Between 1951 and 1992 the United States Military tested 928 Nuclear Weapons on a site in Mercury, Nevada. Despite promises of security and safety, those who lived downwind over Mercury, Nevada, to this day, die more frequently from cancer than anywhere in the country. That the community most affected by being downwind from Mercury, Nevada is a community of the Shoshone Indian Tribe only adds another layer of awful to this terrible story of misguided hubris and disregard of basic human decency. 

The documentary Downwind tells the story of the American nuclear project and the various effects testing nuclear weapons on American soil has had on the American people. The dropping of Atomic weapons on Japan in World War 2 touched off an arms race unlike any in the history of the world. Then, when nuclear weapons were developed, a whole new horror was brought to bear on mankind, one that brought the world to the brink of complete extinction. You see, the American government knew all along that the use of Nuclear weapons would lead to dangerous and deadly fallout but pushed forward with nuclear weapons anyway out of fear that Russia would develop the weapon first. 

In order to develop nuclear weapons, the American government needed to test those weapons. Needing a secure place to do the testing, away from the potential for foreign spies finding out about these developments, and not wanting to create fallout near population centers of the United States, the government settled on tiny Mercury, Nevada. Not so much a town, as a ghost town, Mercury was several miles from anywhere people were living. It would, perhaps, be the safest place this type of testing could be done if there were such a thing as safely testing nuclear weapons. 

Naturally, the desire to harness a new, more powerful weapon, overcame good sense and testing moved ahead despite the fact that everyone was aware of the possibility that anyone living 'downwind' of Mercury could be exposed to radiation fallout, a deadly result of the use of nuclear weapons. The reason nuclear weapons could cause mass extinction if ever used isn't because of the thousands of people who would die from a nuclear blast. Rather, the radiation fallout from the use of nuclear weapons on a global scale, such as the scenario of Russia and the United States firing weapons at each other, would poison the planet and hasten a relatively slow and painful end via disease, famine and drought. 

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media linked here.